Three Banks, One Word, Three Formulas

Three numbers, all as of 31 March 2026, all from the shareholder-composition tables of three annual securities reports: 37.11 percent, 41.63 percent, 37.13 percent. Foreign ownership at Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mizuho Financial Group. None of the three reports prints any of the three. The statutory table splits foreign holders into two columns, other than individuals and individuals, and carries no cell for their sum: Mitsubishi UFJ prints 37.09 and 0.02, Sumitomo Mitsui 41.52 and 0.10, Mizuho 37.10 and 0.03. Every total above is arrived at by the reader, and the table is the same table in all three filings.

The arithmetic has two routes, and at one of the three they part. Add the printed percentages and Sumitomo Mitsui comes to 41.62. Divide the underlying unit counts — 15,871,526 units held by foreign entities other than individuals, 40,056 by foreign individuals, over a base of 38,222,567 units — and the ratio is 41.6288, or 41.63. At Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho the two routes agree to two decimals. One table, two answers a hundredth apart, depending on whether the reader adds the percentages or divides the units. On the unit-count route the three average 38.62, and two of them differ by two hundredths of a point.

What the table classifies is the attribute of the name on the shareholder register, and the top-ten tables show what that means in practice: at all three the largest holders are domestic trust banks' trust accounts and global custodian nominees. All three also state that they have excluded BlackRock's large-shareholding reports from the top-ten table, in each case for the same stated reason, that the company could not confirm the actual holding as of the balance sheet date. The reports so excluded are dated 19 March 2025 at Mitsubishi UFJ, 2 February 2024 at Sumitomo Mitsui and 19 July 2023 at Mizuho.

There is also a denominator. The base is units of 100 shares, odd lots excluded, and treasury stock sits inside it, counted under individuals and others. Mitsubishi UFJ held 556,947,438 treasury shares against a base of 118,588,243 units, Sumitomo Mitsui 10,057,619 against 38,222,567, Mizuho 47,954,672 against 24,790,977, each stated in a note to the same table. All three reconcile: units times 100 plus odd lots equals shares issued, at 11,867,710,920, 3,827,498,140 and 2,489,848,594. Treasury is 4.70 percent of the first base, 0.26 percent of the second, 1.93 percent of the third. Divide foreign units by the base less treasury units and 37.11, 41.63 and 37.13 become 38.94, 41.74 and 37.86 — 41.73 for the middle one if the adjustment starts instead from the sum of the printed percentages. The two that differ by two hundredths before the adjustment differ by 1.08 points after it.

All three annual securities reports are in Japanese. Mitsubishi UFJ filed on 24 June 2026, the other two on 19 June, all with the Kanto Local Finance Bureau, and all three cite Article 24(1) of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act on the cover, on the line above the one naming the bureau. All three state the accounting basis in the same construction — consolidated statements under the consolidated financial statements regulation, with assets, liabilities, income and expenses classified under the Banking Act enforcement regulation. The Tokyo Stock Exchange's English disclosure requirement, in force for Prime Market companies since 1 April 2025, enumerates earnings reports, quarterly earnings reports and their supplementary materials, plus timely disclosure. The annual securities report is not on the list. The exchange does not say it is excluded. It sits outside what the rule names.

The scope of the requirement is set out by the exchange itself. It does not require the whole of each document; partial or summary English disclosure suffices, and there is no uniform standard for how much is enough — companies are to judge with reference to their dialogue with overseas investors. Publishing only the summary page of an earnings report does not constitute a rule violation, and the exchange records that overseas investors have asked for segment information and notes. English should be simultaneous with Japanese, except in the urgent or last-minute cases the exchange names, a suddenly disclosable event or content unsettled with the parties involved until just before release, and then only where waiting for the English would delay the Japanese. The practice in those cases is Japanese first and English the same day, a timing tied to the disclosure system's reception hours rather than to the rule text. Failure can draw a public measure rather than a penalty.

The English route is Form 20-F. Mizuho's securities report notes, inside the risk section, that as a New York-listed company its management and its auditor must report on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting on that form. Mitsubishi UFJ's English site carries twenty-one years of the form, fiscal 2006 through fiscal 2026, with no filing dates shown on the index page. Sumitomo Mitsui's for the year ended 31 March 2026 runs 355 pages and states that it is prepared under IFRS, except for risk-weighted capital ratios, segmental results of operations and some other specifically identified information, which are prepared in accordance with Japanese banking regulations or Japanese GAAP. Its English version of the annual securities report is an excerpt of the consolidated financial statements, not a translation of the report.

Mizuho's 20-F is U.S. GAAP, with Japanese GAAP surfacing for segments and capital ratios, and it contains the reconciliation between the two. Profit attributable to shareholders for the year to March 2026 is ¥1,158.0 billion (US$7.0696 billion) under U.S. GAAP and ¥1,248.6 billion (US$7.6227 billion) under Japanese GAAP, a difference of ¥90.6 billion (US$553 million), or 7.8 percent of the U.S. GAAP figure. Twelve categories of adjustment produce that net, and the two largest run against each other: derivative financial instruments and hedging activities at plus ¥579.1 billion (US$3.535 billion), investments at minus ¥692.1 billion (US$4.225 billion). They largely offset, and the filing does not attribute the residue to any one of the twelve. It does state that segment figures, being Japanese GAAP, are not consistent with the U.S. GAAP statements, and that reconciling segment items other than net business profits is impracticable.

Which brings us to the number at the center of every Japanese bank presentation. Consolidated net business profits for fiscal 2025: Mitsubishi UFJ, gross profits before trust account write-offs less operating expenses, ¥2,377.2 billion (US$14.513 billion). Sumitomo Mitsui, consolidated gross profit less operating expenses plus equity in earnings of affiliates, ¥2,330.9 billion (US$14.230 billion). Mizuho, consolidated gross profits less expenses excluding non-recurring items plus equity-method income and consolidation adjustments, ¥1,422.8 billion (US$8.6862 billion). Three companies, three formulas, one name, and the name is the part that travels.

The formulas differ in scope and in labelling. Two of the three as printed carry equity in earnings of affiliates and Mitsubishi UFJ's does not; Sumitomo Mitsui discloses that line at ¥137.7 billion (US$840.7 million). The three figures are not restated onto a common basis here, and a difference in scope is not a difference in performance. The labels differ too: Mitsubishi UFJ's securities report specifies in the label attached to the figure the basis on which it is stated, and the other two formulas as printed do not use that wording. The same ¥2,377.2 billion (US$14.513 billion) appears in Mitsubishi UFJ's 87-page results presentation under a heading that references trust accounts. The securities report's label is the longer of the two. The presentation is not the statutory filing and its headings are not the filing's headings.

Mitsubishi UFJ then publishes a second version of the same concept. Pages 6 and 20 of that presentation carry a figure footnoted as consolidated net business profits on a management-accounting basis, ¥2,365.4 billion (US$14.441 billion), which is ¥11.8 billion (US$72.0 million) below the financial-accounting one. The difference is printed; its components are not. The business-group pages are a third series again: seven units reported on a local-currency basis, summing to ¥2,165.0 billion (US$13.217 billion), ¥200.4 billion (US$1.223 billion) below the management-basis consolidated figure. The presentation does not print a reconciliation between the two, and the nearest line of that name, an other of minus ¥96.9 billion (US$592 million) on page 6, is a year-on-year bridge item rather than a balance, so it is not that reconciliation.

Mizuho carries its own modifier. Alongside consolidated net business profits it publishes consolidated net business profits plus ETF-related gains. The company defines the add-on as ETF gains at the two banks non-consolidated together with trading securities gains at Mizuho Securities consolidated — two scopes, as the definition states — and discloses it at ¥38,373 million (US$234.27 million), of which ¥30,852 million (US$188.35 million) sits in the global markets company. The composite, disclosed as ¥1,461,149 million and stated in the narrative as ¥1,461.1 billion (US$8.9203 billion, converted from the million figure), is what the segment note measures. The segment note's definition sentence is not the MD&A's: it carries a deduction for goodwill and intangible amortization that the MD&A formula does not contain. Both sentences produce the same figure, and the two sit in different parts of the report.

Each of the three publishes an expense ratio, and each computes it on a different basis, so the three figures do not form a series and are not ordered here. Mitsubishi UFJ prints 60.0 percent, Sumitomo Mitsui 54.7 percent, Mizuho 52.5 percent — three measures that share a name. Neither of the first two prints the formula, and at Mitsubishi UFJ the 60.0 is a parenthetical memo line, though both can be recovered to the first decimal by dividing disclosed expenses by disclosed gross profit. Mizuho's 52.5 percent is a different object: it covers the two banks on a non-consolidated basis, expenses excluding non-recurring items of ¥1,092.6 billion (US$6.6703 billion) over gross profits of ¥2,077.5 billion (US$12.683 billion). The ratio is printed truncated to one decimal rather than rounded — 1,092,604 million over 2,077,461 million is 52.593 percent — and the prior-year column of the same table is truncated the same way, 58.783 percent printed as 58.7. The string OHR appears nowhere in the earnings report that carries the figure. The consolidated column of that report publishes no expense ratio, and the line it does publish, operating expenses, is not the same line as expenses excluding non-recurring items, so a consolidated ratio on the non-consolidated one's basis cannot be assembled from the document.

Targets compound it. Mitsubishi UFJ's plan states a target expense ratio of about 60 percent, and the company reports an adjusted 58.0 percent for fiscal 2025 and an adjusted 57.6 percent for fiscal 2024. Each year's adjustment is disclosed with its own stated basis, and the two bases are not the same item; the two adjusted figures are not treated here as a series and nothing is drawn from the difference between them. Sumitomo Mitsui's previous plan targeted base expenses; the presentation page carrying the term does not enumerate its components. The new plan uses the term total expenses and footnotes the exclusions — environmental factors, one-off factors, revenue-linked costs, IT-related costs.

Segments are seven, four and five. Mitsubishi UFJ runs seven business groups plus an other; Sumitomo Mitsui four divisions plus head office; Mizuho five in-house companies plus an other. The axes are not the same axes. Sumitomo Mitsui splits Japan by customer, wholesale and retail, then places everything overseas — Japanese clients and local clients alike — into one geographic bucket. Mitsubishi UFJ splits overseas twice, into non-Japanese large corporates and overseas commercial banking, while keeping Japanese large corporates at home and abroad in a third unit. Mizuho describes its structure as customer-segment based, then defines two of the five by product and function.

Nor do the segment numbers add to the consolidated ones, and each report handles the residue in its own place. Sumitomo Mitsui's four divisions sum to ¥2,589.3 billion (US$15.808 billion), ¥258.4 billion (US$1.578 billion) above consolidated net business profits of ¥2,330.9 billion (US$14.230 billion). The securities report prints that amount as a single line, head office and other, at minus ¥258.4 billion, with a note stating that it includes items to be eliminated as internal transactions; the presentation, where the division figures are internal-management numbers to begin with, does not carry the equivalent line. The securities report also states that assets are not managed by segment, so a segment return on assets is not computable from it. Mizuho places internal-transaction eliminations inside the other column rather than a separate adjustment column, which means other is not a sixth business. Mitsubishi UFJ's business-group returns are computed on denominators the company defines at the business-group level, which are not the consolidated denominator, so the business-group figures cannot be weighted up to the consolidated one. No capital measure of any of the three is examined or compared in this piece.

Currency is handled three ways. Mitsubishi UFJ quantifies it in the presentation — roughly ¥200 billion (about US$1.2 billion) added to gross profits, roughly ¥100 billion (about US$610 million) to expenses — while the MD&A of its securities report explains no variance by currency. Sumitomo Mitsui quantifies ¥65.0 billion (US$397 million) on gross profit and ¥29.0 billion (US$177 million) on expenses, and prints the year-end telegraphic transfer rates it used. Mizuho translates the income and expenses of overseas branches and of subsidiaries whose functional currency is not the yen at budget rates, and restates the prior year at the current year's budget rate, so its segment comparison is currency-neutral by construction. That measure is internal-management-based and is bridged back through a separate difference table; the segment total equals the MD&A's ¥1,461.1 billion (US$8.9203 billion).

Sumitomo Mitsui's segment table states in a note that the year-over-year column is presented adjusted for interest rate and currency effects, so that column is an adjusted change rather than the arithmetic difference between the two printed years. On the consolidated gross profit line the adjustment removes ¥91.9 billion (US$561 million) in wholesale and adds ¥21.9 billion (US$134 million) in retail. On the consolidated net business profit line it removes ¥54.4 billion (US$332 million) in wholesale and ¥14.5 billion (US$88.5 million) in retail. The note does not split the adjustment between the two effects. The segment note in the financial statements is on the unadjusted basis, and the report states both bases, so two year-over-year changes for the same divisions coexist inside one company's disclosure.

Return measures close it out. Sumitomo Mitsui's plan states a return on tangible equity target of 13 percent or more for fiscal 2028, positioned in the presentation as a three-year milestone toward 15 percent, and it states ¥1 trillion (about US$6.1 billion) of IT investment over the plan's three years. As the securities report defines the return measure, the denominator is net assets less intangible fixed assets and the numerator is net income with goodwill amortization added back. The presentation's footnote words the denominator as equity less intangible assets, and sits on a chart of other companies' targets rather than on the company's own. Two documents, one measure, two wordings for the denominator. The measure is not computed here. The previous plan's profitability target was a different measure again. Mizuho discloses return on equity on three stated bases for the year — 11.4 percent on the exchange's definition, 11.47 percent consolidated, 9.37 percent non-consolidated — and states that its plan target of more than 12 percent for fiscal 2028 refers to the first; the report also records an earlier fiscal 2027 target of more than 10 percent as reached two years ahead of that date. Three bases, three numbers, one year, each labelled in the source. No return figure here is compared across the three companies.

Geography completes the pattern. All three disclose ordinary income and tangible fixed assets by region and none discloses profit by region, so regional profitability is not computable from any of them; the regions differ too, with Mitsubishi UFJ using five buckets for revenue and three for fixed assets, Thailand standing alone. Japan's share of ordinary income works out to 47.7, 46.8 and 45.6 percent, a spread of 2.1 points, and it measures where the office is rather than where the customer is. The closest the three come on wording is the line stating that production, orders and sales are not applicable to a bank holding company. Two of them use the same phrase for why; the third words it differently. All three place the line inside the MD&A rather than at the level of the statutory form's own headings — Mitsubishi UFJ as a parenthetical line with no entry in the contents, Sumitomo Mitsui as sub-item 7, Mizuho as sub-item 2.

On conversion: yen amounts here are converted at ¥163.8 = US$1, the rate for 24 July 2026 as published by TradingEconomics, and that single rate is applied to every period referenced, including years whose own rates were different, so dollar figures for earlier years are not what those years' dollars were. Each conversion carries the significant figures of the yen figure as published, with one exception, noted at its first appearance: Mizuho's ¥1,461.1 billion is converted from the underlying 1,461,149 million to avoid compounding a rounding. Figures derived here by subtraction or division are marked as such in the text. Ratios, percentages, multiples and counts are not converted.